Seniors: Part 2, Maximizing the Present

Today’s assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to maximize the present. That’s it. Everyday it is the same. Everyday, no matter what, maximizing the present is our first and exclusive priority. There can be no skipping over it, no pulling the covers over our heads, no blocking out its sneaking upon us, no closing off what may be in store. One way or the other, we must maximize every minute, every new day.

If we lose sight of maximizing, we are exposed to just trying to contend with the present. Denial, though futile, simply means, if this is a method we choose, that our contending mechanism has completely lost another 24 hours of our life. Wasted, misspent, squandered by having done absolutely nothing. Still the day has been met and contending with it has been done. Not to do anything is to do something. Not to decide, so said a theologian of years’ back, is to decide.

So what’s it going to be? How shall we construct our plan of attack for every new day in a way that we draw as much from it as we can? How shall we “mount up with wings like eagles” and fly forth into the adventure of a new day? How will we make it count? How will we be a demonstrator to others, who may observe us, what is required to get the most, the best, the healthiest out of every minute of our day?

Maximizing the present presumes that the present is not an enemy, but a close and dear friend. This is something requiring embracing, enjoying, receiving full gratification from its experience. Not unlike leaving the past, maximizing the present may require some sacrifices. Maximizing offers the opportunity for investment of self, energy, exercise of wisdom. Someone has characterized it this way: yesterday is a cancelled check, tomorrow is a promissory note, today is our only cash in hand. What we have available is the time right now to invest in whatever way will pay the largest dividends to our life’s purpose and its undertakings.

Lost, set aside, procrastinated, ignored, misspent, frittered away… whatever, it is gone! And now, the chiming of the clock reminds us that it is irretrivable. Preparing for a new day means being ready for what is about to land on you. Maximizing whatever that is means being equipped to meet whatever it is, however it comes. Making the most of all the unexpected surprises, the unanticipated introductions into your life means developing the wherewithal to be victorious over problems and making the most of each moment.

How quickly the present is here and gone. How soon the moment we savored is just an aftertaste. How suddenly the present becomes the past and the acts of those moments are now memories, accumulated along with all the others. Thus, the reason we extol the virtues of the now. Seizing the day and all that there is in it is one way to keep life full of stupendous wonder, active energy, a time to exercise all we have learned. Now, is it. Now, before it is gone make this moment a treasured experience of your being.